Keyword Research:What It Is and How to Do It

From website architecture to content

On the previous page, you learned how to organise your website with a clear architecture based on semantic silos. Once you have defined this structure, the next step is to complete it with the right keywords. They will allow you to identify the topics users search for and decide which content to create within each section of your website.

Within a search engine optimisation strategy, understanding how people search on Google is essential for planning content that answers your audience’s real needs.

What are keywords?

In SEO, keywords connect your website’s content with your audience’s actual searches. This is why each page should be optimised around a primary keyword that represents its purpose, accompanied by other related terms that help develop the topic.

Primary keywords

The page’s central topic

They represent the main search intent that a page answers.

For example: “online business”.

They are usually broader terms with a higher search volume.

Secondary keywords

They reinforce the content

They complement the primary keyword and develop related aspects of the same topic.

They may be variations, synonyms or complementary searches, such as “how to start an online business”, “digital business” or “internet business”.

They help broaden the semantic context without changing the page’s main topic.

Long-tail keywords

More specific searches

These are more detailed queries that reflect a specific user need.

For example: “best online business ideas from home”.

They usually have less competition and a clearer search intent, which makes it easier to attract better-qualified traffic.

Understanding these differences will help you choose the topic of each page more effectively and develop content capable of answering your audience’s searches precisely.

Understanding search intent

Every search reflects a specific need or objective. Understanding this intent is essential for choosing the right keywords and creating content that answers exactly what people expect to find.

This is not only important for Google. Generative engines powered by artificial intelligence, such as ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude, also analyse query intent to select the most relevant information and generate their answers.

There are generally four main categories of search intent:

The user wants to learn something or find an answer to a question.

Examples: “how to create a website”, “what is SEO”, “online business ideas”.

The user is looking for a product or service with the intention of buying or booking it.

Examples: “best running shoes”, “phones with good cameras”, “cheap travel deals”.

The user is evaluating several options before making a decision.

Examples: “iPhone or Samsung”, “Netflix vs Disney Plus”, “best summer holiday destination”.

The user already knows which website they want to access and uses Google to find it quickly.

Examples: “Facebook login”, “Zara online store”.

How to find keywords

Although it is possible to find ideas directly on Google, SEO professionals use specialist tools that reveal thousands of keywords related to a topic and help analyse their ranking potential.

The process begins by entering a seed, or seed keyword, which is a broad term representing the topic you want to research. From that term, the tool generates dozens or hundreds of related keywords.

In addition to generating new ideas, these tools provide very useful information about each keyword, such as its search volume, level of competition and other indicators that will help you choose the best opportunities.

Tool used in this guide

For this analysis, we will use Exaldia, an SEO platform designed to discover keyword opportunities and assess their ranking potential. Throughout this guide, you will learn how to use its main features to find the best opportunities for your project.

How to analyse data from keyword tools

Once you enter a seed into an SEO research tool, several indicators appear to help you assess whether the term is worth targeting within your content strategy.

The most important are the following:

Monthly search volume

Monthly search volume indicates how many times, on average, a keyword is searched for each month in search engines. In general, the higher the volume, the greater the amount of potential traffic that search can generate.

As a guide, these indicative ranges can be interpreted as follows:

• Fewer than 500 searches per month: low
• Between 500 and 5,000 searches per month: medium
• More than 5,000 searches per month: high

There is no “good” or “bad” search volume. These ranges are only indicative and should always be interpreted according to the industry, country and objective of the project. In many cases, a keyword with few searches but a very specific intent can generate more conversions than another with a much higher volume.

Search trend

The search trend shows how interest in a keyword changes over time. Some SEO tools represent this development with a chart.

Analysing the trend allows you to determine whether a keyword is:

• 📈 gaining popularity;
• ➖ remaining stable;
• 📉 losing interest.

Knowing this helps you spot new content opportunities and avoid investing time in topics whose popularity is declining.

Keyword Difficulty (KD)

Keyword Difficulty (KD) is an indicator that estimates how difficult it is to rank a page among Google’s top ten organic results. It is usually expressed on a scale from 0 to 100.

This value is calculated by analysing different factors, including:

• the authority of the pages that already occupy the top positions;
• the quantity and quality of links those pages receive.

These are its indicative ranges:

• 0–20: very low
• 21–29: low
• 30–40: medium
• More than 40: high

The higher the KD, the stronger the competition and the more effort it will take to rank a page for that keyword.

Cost per click (CPC)

CPC, or cost per click, comes from search engine advertising, but it can also provide very useful information for SEO.

This indicator shows the average amount advertisers are willing to pay for a click on ads associated with a keyword.

A high CPC generally indicates that the search has strong commercial value because many businesses are competing to attract that traffic.

For example, if two keywords have similar search volume and difficulty, it may be more useful to target the one with the higher CPC because it generally reflects greater business potential.

Search intent

As we saw earlier, every search corresponds to a specific intent: informational, commercial or transactional, comparative, or navigational.

Many SEO tools automatically identify the search intent of each keyword, making it easier to select the most suitable type of content.

Understanding this intent allows you to align your content with what the user genuinely expects to find, increasing the chances of ranking and generating interaction with your website.

Keywords and domain names

If you have not yet chosen a domain name for your project, you may be wondering whether it is worth including the primary keyword.

Years ago, Exact Match Domains (EMDs), meaning domains that exactly matched a keyword, such as bestshoes.com, could offer a significant SEO advantage.

Today, that advantage is much smaller. Search engines place far more importance on content quality, user experience and website authority than on the domain name.

Advantages of including a keyword in the domain name

• It helps users identify the website’s subject quickly.
• It can provide a slight SEO relevance advantage, especially for low-competition niche projects.
• When other websites link to your content, they often use the domain name as the anchor text. If it contains a relevant keyword, it can reinforce the website’s subject slightly and naturally.

Disadvantages of including a keyword in the domain name

• It may be less memorable and make it harder to build a strong brand.
• It may limit how the project can evolve if you later decide to expand the subject or diversify your services.
• Domains that are too generic may appear less professional or inspire less trust among users.

What should you do after finding your keywords?

Once you have identified the best opportunities, the next step is to assign the keywords to the pages in the architecture you defined earlier.

The objective is for each page to have a primary keyword and several related keywords that help develop the topic fully.

Review the pages in the architecture you defined earlier and turn the main idea of each one into a keyword that represents the search a user would perform on Google.

As a general rule, each page should focus on a single primary keyword.

Complete each page with related secondary keywords, variations and long-tail searches.

These queries will help you develop the topic in greater depth and answer the different questions users may have.

During the research, it is common to discover keywords you had not considered initially.

If they represent a different search intent, consider creating new pages and adding them to your website architecture.

Not every keyword should be targeted at the same time.

Start with those that offer the best balance between:

• search volume;
• difficulty (KD);
• search intent;
• value for your project.

Once you have assigned keywords to each page, you will have a clear, organised SEO plan.

In the next guide, you will learn how to write and structure each page so that it is optimised for both search engines and AI-powered generative engines.

The next step in your Scale & Own journey

You now know how to identify the best opportunities and plan your website’s content using a keyword strategy.

In the next lesson, you will learn how to turn that plan into an SEO-optimised page that answers the user’s search intent and improves its chances of ranking.